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22 February 2019

Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.

The Mercury Prize 2011

When the nominations for the Mercury Prize were announced, we
predicted PJ Harvey would take the honours. And last night it duly
came to pass.

The bookies had installed her as one of the favourites alongside
all-conquering Adele, but we had complete confidence in Polly Jean.
Why so? Because her album Let England Shake has by some distance
the highest ADM rating of the Mercury contenders.

What's more, it sits proudly at No.3 in our all-time chart, making
it one of the most widely-acclaimed albums of the past few
years.

Adele, for all her quadruple-platinum-selling success, has a
relatively modest 7.1 ADM rating for her album 21.

OK, so we got it wrong last year, when we urged you to put your
money on Paul Weller's Wake Up The Nation only to see The Modfather
pipped by The xx's debut - but in our defence there was only a
marginal difference in the ADM ratings for the two albums: 8.13 and
8.10.

This time round, there was never any doubt.

For the record, here's the ratings for the 10 shortlisted albums
to have featured in the ADM chart (Ghostpoet and Gwilym Simcock
were not reviewed by the majority of our sources).